Martin Snelling - 

Last week, I set the challenge of making real your imagination, and we even put up a prize to get your lazy asses off the chair/sofa. However, the prospect of winning an ACTUAL mobile clearly wasn’t enough for most of you as we only had one entry. One entry! What happened people? Was it too much of a challenge? Did we not give you enough time? Was it Symbian? It was Symbian, wasn’t it? Nonetheless, Kat, Sam and intern-Chris snapped a pic each, so you can see what song they were inspired by…

Anyway, I shall not dwell on the fact we only had ONE entry and announce the winner.. It was a very good entry and one I feel would make a good CD cover.

So, the winner is… Andrew Wilson. Over to Andrew for a few words on his work:

“The shot was taken with a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX20V set in Program mode to take 3 bracketed photos with +/- 1 EV, this being used to create a HDR shot in Photomatrix Pro. The photo was taken on one of the many shores of Derwentwater Lake, just outside of Keswick.”

 

The song chosen was 57 Kites by Robin Leitch – Listen for free here.

 

I listen to a lot of punk style music, some it in the form of pop-punk, ska punk and more classic rock based punk, most of it is different in it’s execution but most of it carries a strong message. Usually the song portrays and carries a pure and just message, an argument to carry the writers thoughts and feelings, but who knows where the good and bad side of the line starts ends. What would happen if that pure and just cause lost it’s way, would we keep arguing for it, and what would we do and say to make people believe us.

 

Robin Leitch is the singer and Trombonist for a ska/punk/metal band called Random Hand but plays acoustic punk in his spare time, in this song I believe he is venting his guilt and frustrations of needing to argue to the point where he hates himself and the things he believes in. He corrupted himself and his cause, in more than one way.

 

The photo came about when I was on holiday in the lake district last week, I was thinking about the competition and had came across nothing (the lakes is too nice a place for the songs I usually connect to) until I saw a scrap of paper on the floor. It confused me at first, just the one word; “corruption”. But then I understood straight away, the beauty of the surroundings and this physical reminder of everything bad in the world. I took the photo where the scrap laid near the waterline. I had already enjoyed the song previously for it’s cutting self portrayal of guilt and self reprisal and connected it to the photo immediately.

 

I could have set up a complex scene to capture so much more about the song, but the purity of the image sort of speaks for itself.”

Great work Andrew, and well deserved.

I’m going off to sulk and think of a less-taxing challenge for you all for next week, but in the meantime, check out Kat, Sam and intern-Chris’s work below:

Kat chose Talking Heads’ Once In A Lifetime as her musical inspiration this week:

“I shot this photo in a club, using an LC-Wide film camera from Lomography, and what’s possibly my favourite film type, Kodak’s Elitechrome 100. Once In A Lifetime, to me, is a chaotic song full of hesitation and hope, with David Byrne’s strong water symbolism being represented by the bluey-green hues and bubble-like lights.”

Sam, meanwhile, used a Nokia 808 PureView to capture an angry Chris in a London street:

“I tried to capture the essence behind one of my favourite songs of all time, Don’t Look Back in Anger by Oasis. Unfortunately I didn’t have a stunning sultry model to shoot, so Chris stepped into the breach. Don’t Look Back in Anger sums up the strife between fighting friends or lovers to me (friends in this case, obviously), and is a song that just captures the mood beautifully. Anyway, so here we have a man looking irritated back at you; lord knows what you’ve just done to deserve that scowl.”

Intern-Chris used a Sony NEX-C3 to take this photo on a beach at sunset:

“I picked James Blunt’s Stay The Night as my inspiration, and shot this photo of my girlfriend on the beach at sundown. It’s an upbeat song, the tempo and time of the music is designed to make you dance (which is what my unnamed model is doing in the photo); more than that, though, it’s a reflection on a perfect day that’s passed, shown by the sunset and the clearly happy lone dancer. It’s also, though, a reflection on solipsism, which is reflected by the lone person’s (in the photo) ability to enjoy being by themselves.”

Let’s see some more entries in next week’s Shooting Challenge, ok guys?

Martin Snelling is a Hampshire-based man about town who works in the videogame industry. A keen photographer, Martin shoots on film and digital; he blogs here, and tweets here.